Anna and the French Kiss

Stephanie Perkins s characters fall in love the way we all want to, in real time and for good. -Rainbow Rowell, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Anna can t wait for her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. So she s less than thrilled when her father unexpectedly ships her off to boarding school in Paris until she meets Étienne St. Clair, the perfect boy. The only problem? He\'s taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her crush back home. Will a year of romantic near-misses end in the French kiss Anna awaits?

Leseprobe:

chapter one

Here is everything I know about France: Madeline and Amélie and Moulin Rouge. The Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, although I have no idea what the function of either actually is. Napoleon, Marie Antoinette, and a lot of kings named Louis. I m not sure what they did either, but I think it has something to do with the French Revolution, which has something to do with Bastille Day. The art museum is called the Louvre and it s shaped like a pyramid and the Mona Lisa lives there along with that statue of the woman missing her arms. And there are cafés or bistros or whatever they call them on every street corner. And mimes. The food is supposed to be good, and the people drink a lot of wine and smoke a lot of cigarettes.

I ve heard they don t like Americans, and they don t like white sneakers.

A few months ago, my father enrolled me in boarding school. His air quotes practically crackled over the phone line as he declared living abroad to be a good learning experience and a keepsake I d treasure forever. Yeah. Keepsake. And I would ve pointed out his misuse of the word had I not already been freaking out.

Since his announcement, I ve tried yelling, begging, pleading, and crying, but nothing has convinced him otherwise. And now I have a new student visa and a passport, each declaring me: Anna Oliphant, citizen of the United States of America. And now I m here with my parents unpacking my belongings in a room smaller than my suitcase the newest senior at the School of America in Paris.

It s not that I m ungrateful. I mean, it s Paris. The City of Light! The most romantic city in the world! I m not immune to that. It s just this whole international boarding school thing is a lot more about my father than it is about me. Ever since he sold out and started writing lame books that were turned into even lamer movies, he s been trying to impress his big-shot New York friends with how cultured and rich he is.

My father isn t cultured. But he is rich.

It wasn t always like this.When my parents were still married, we were strictly lower middle class. It was around the time of the divorce that all traces of decency vanished, and his dream of being the next great Southern writer was replaced by his desire to be the next published writer. So he started writing these novels set in Small Town Georgia about folks with Good American Values who Fall in Love and then contract Life-Threatening Diseases and Die.

I m serious.

And it totally depresses me, but the ladies eat it up.They love my father s books and they love his cable-knit sweaters and they love his bleachy smile and orangey tan. And they have turned him into a bestseller and a total dick.

Two of his books have been made into movies and three more are in production, which is where his real money comes from. Hollywood. And, somehow, this extra cash and pseudo-prestige have warped his brain into thinkingthat I should live in France. For a year. Alone. I don t understand why he couldn t send me to Australia or Ireland or anywhere else where English is the native language. The only French word I know is oui, which means yes, and only recently did I learn it s spelled o-u-i and not w-e-e.

At least the people in my new school speak English. It was founded for pretentious Americans who don t like the company of their own children. I mean, really. Who sends their kid to boarding school? It s so Hogwarts. Only mine doesn t have cute boy wizards or magic candy or flying lessons.

Instead, I m stuck with ninety-nine other students. There are twenty-five people in my entire senior class, as opposed to the six hundred I had back in Atlanta